Conformal Anomalies in Hydrodynamics

Abstract

We study the effect of conformal anomalies on the hydrodynamic description of conformal field theories in even spacetime dimensions. We consider equilibrium curved backgrounds characterized by a time-like Killing vector and construct a local low energy effective action that captures the conformal anomalies. Using as a special background the Rindler spacetime we derive a formula for the anomaly effect on the hydrodynamic pressure. We find that this anomalous effect is only due to the Euler central charge.